Abraham.
“It ain’t right,” he says in a voice like twinkling stars. “Let the girl undo it.”
“Abraham, are you ready to move on?” Farrah asks, her voice solemn.
The ghost turns toward her and blinks. “This is my home,” he says as if surprised to be asked such a ridiculous question. “She’ll need me. I didn’t mean to raise a fuss, but she wouldn’t listen.” He steps in front of me, leans in, and whispers, “It’s under the office. Go give ’em hell, kid.”
And then he dissolves like fog burned off by the morning sun.
I look down, expecting Maggie to start screeching in my head at this truth bomb, but she’s lying on the floor, still as a stone.
38.
“Can I leavethe circle now?” I ask. I’ve read way too many books and watched way too many movies in which the heroine thinks she has completed her task and then fumbles it at the last minute.
Farrah nods, and I let go of Hunter’s hand and hurry over to Maggie, gently picking her up. Her personality is so big that I forget how delicate she really is, how slight her body is under those feathers.
“You okay, honey?” I ask, gently stroking her. At least her neck isn’t loose. I’m pretty sure I can feel her breathing. She’s warm. But her eyes are firmly closed.
Until one opens and focuses on me. “Shipoopi!” she squawks.
She flaps her wings until she’s perching on my arm, looking around the room in confusion.
“What on earth?” she says in my head in a voice that I’ve never heard before.
“Maggie?”
She blinks up at me. “Pretty sure my name is Doris, but I think I just got knocked ass over teakettle.”
I stand, holding my cockatoo, my eyes burning.
“I…I think Maggie’s really gone,” I say.
“Maggie?” Joyce asks, confused.
And I guess I don’t have to keep her secret anymore.
“Before now, that was her. My cockatoo. Maggie was…in her. She did some kind of spell so she could come back, and she ended up in the parrot’s body. But now I think Doris is just Doris again.” I look down at the smudged salt circle. “She was outside of the circle, at the end. The spell—it must’ve worked on her, too.”
The hands that held mine now touch my shoulders as Hunter and the other witches gather around me.
“That’s what’s supposed to happen,” Joyce says softly. “She was able to move beyond. To find peace. And I’m sure she was glad she got to meet you and get some time with the granddaughter she never knew.”
“She sure loved you, honey.” Tears are making a mess of Tina’s mascara. “It took forever for her to move those Scrabble tiles into place with her little beak, but she wanted what was best for you.”
I’m crying now, too. Maybe the only real peace Maggie and I ever knew was watching movies together for one single night, but I’ll hold that memory fondly for all of my days. She brought magic into my life, and she brought me here, to Arcadia Falls, even if it was by accident. My grandmother gave me the choice to dream and the resources to help make that dream come true. I’m just sorry she won’t get to see everything come to fruition and know that her legacy, that this land and our family, will carry on here in Arcadia Falls.
“Okay, now we really have to do a mural on the side of the bookstore.” I sniffle. “Can we do, like, half Stevie Nicks and half cockatoo?”
“She always was a vain old thing,” Tina says, shaking her head. “Had more lipsticks than anybody I ever met. Miranda and I borrowed one once, and she went on a rampage.”
“Who died?” Doris asks in my head. “Where’s the body? Because let me tell you, you don’t want to let those things sit around. When my last owner died, I had to smell her for days.” And then, out loud, “Lordy!”
The women tell me old stories about my grandmother as Hunter sweeps up the salt. I try to get used to this new voice in my head, try to remind myself that I got my old Doris back and that now I have a built-in friend who won’t holler at me quite so much, hopefully. Doris has never called me a hussy, at least. And maybe she won’t raise such a fuss if she catches me kissing Hunter, because I definitely plan on doing that at the earliest possible convenience.
But then I remember—calming the poltergeist was only one half of the plan.
“Tina, can you hold Doris?” I ask, and Tina holds out her arm. Doris steps over, murmuring, “She seems familiar. And a little scared? And she smells like VapoRub, just like Hilda used to. That’s good. I won’t bite her.”
